Some may find the following essay disturbing. I mean no disrespect, nor do I intend to disturb, or, at least, I do not intend to disturb for its own sake.
“Substitute forgetting for anamnesis, experimentation for interpretation. Find your body without organs. Find out how to make it. It’s a question of life and death, youth and old age, sadness and joy. It is where everything is played out.” – Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus
“Sadism like desire seeks to strip the Other of the acts which hide him. It seeks to reveal the flesh beneath the action.” – Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
“For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh . . .” – Galatians 5:17
As I write this, Terri Schiavo may already be dead. There has been a storm of words and images over, not this woman, but her body. There is a metaphysical question unanswered in the middle of all of this, and to discuss it seems pathetic, revolting, even evil. But we have to discuss it, and it may point us to other questions that we need to ask if we are going to survive, or live, in or out of body.
In David Cronenberg’s graphic film Videodrome, the owner of a small, controversial TV station intercepts pirate transmissions of a show dedicated to the torture and death of its participants. As he says to a colleague, there is no plot, no story, no character development – just pure, sadomasochistic violence. He assumes it is simply incredible acting, and that assumption is challenged as the film continues. What is clear is that the violence itself becomes a gateway to a new form of perception, the flesh incorporates a shift in psychic and spiritual existence, a human Being that is not tied to the necessity of the body but can exist through the communicative networks of satellite, cathode ray, and, (to contemporize this 1983 film), internet cable.
Which, incidentally, is where Terri Schiavo has existed over the last several weeks. Her body is lying somewhere in Florida, but she as a person is manifested in the descriptions offered by those around her. Depending on who you ask, she is in a “persistent vegetative state” (which has a macabre nuance to it – she is persistently vegetative, as if what we would call consciousness is something she is actively resisting), responding to her mother’s cooing, a potential icon for our “culture of life,” or a will in the past tense (“this is what she would want”). “Terri Schiavo” has apparently spoken to us more now then she ever did when she could speak.
And what is she saying? SHE is silent, but she IS silent, and, which has created the legal battle in the first place, WAS silent – silent on what should be done in this situation. I emphasize the temporal because this is, in my mind, the critical metaphysical (although not ethical, which I will get to) question. I have heard one version of her say that starving to death is “what she would have wanted.” Always, always in the past tense. Not “what she wants now.” What does Terri Schiavo want now? This is the question, in fact, for if she wants now, then she, as a conscious human being still exists. We can speak of Terri Schiavo as a self, a real, in space and time, human entity. If, however, she does not want now, if she is no longer a human being but an animated body, then she no longer exists. All we have is her flesh. Of course, implicit in all this is a spiritual existence that is the real person, a spiritual existence we only speak of when it is convenient for us. So we could just as easily say that this is a debate about her spirit.
But it’s not. This is, above all else, a battle over Terri Schiavo’s flesh, not Terri Schiavo. She is our Videodrome. Like all flesh, her’s has become a site of belief, fear, anger, difference, and, above all else, power. What has struck me the most is how much power, when ultimately purified and examined, is always about who lives and who dies. Iraqis, terrorists, Americans, murderers, Jews, Palestinians, the mentally disabled, fetuses, and Terri Schiavo – its all a matter of what power structure, system, TV series is dominant. Our bioethics were long ago determined by ER, our politics by The West Wing, and our taste in entertainment by Survivor (and this legal battle is, of course, reality TV at its best – is she going to live or is she going to die?) The virtual, immaterial, ideological is manifesting itself on the fleshly, material, physical. The two are blurred and turning into each other. We cannot separate our version of Terri Schiavo from the body that lies on the bed, but it is that very body that allows us to create our versions of her self.
I do not mean to neglect the ethical in this. The ethical clarity that I personally find in this case makes the legal and ideological language games violently pathetic. As long as we can point to a body that breathes, pulses, digests on its own and can say “this is Terri Schiavo, she has not clearly told us how we ought to treat her” then we have no right, NO one has the right, to make that decision for her. We give her the food and water she needs to live, as we would any Other. We do not say, “they’ll probably lose the legal battle, there is no reason to keep her alive until then.” We do not say “she would have wanted this” because we cannot say what she would have wanted or what she wants now. We do not say “that is not Terri Schiavo” as we don’t know who or what she is now, if she is herself, if identity, although fluid, carries a memory and a continuity that is necessary for change to occur. I’m being simplistic, I know, but it seems to me that there is a clear difference between taking someone off a heart or breathing machine and denying them food. We are becoming machines more and more; where does the human, or human life, stop and the nonhuman begin? Are we post-human? Questions without answers that constantly elude us. But even when they are not answered, ethical responsibility is always there.
Is Terri Schiavo alive? I don’t know, I’m writing this at home and haven’t yet seen the news. But if, as she was yesterday, she is still what we could call physically alive, living flesh, then I believe the answer is yes. And if Terri Schiavo is alive, then what right do we have to kill her? (And to kill her from exposure, another one of the violently disturbing paradoxes of American bioethical culture. We keep doctor-assisted suicide illegal so that we can simply starve those patients physically and mentally incapable of feeding themselves. If you are going to watch her die, fucking give her an overdose of morphine. Ethical? Probably not; but if I was one of Terri Schiavo’s caretakers, legally forced to watch her flesh slowly stop working from a lack of nutrients, I’d be very tempted to show her unethical mercy, suffer all the legal consequences, and pray for forgiveness.) And who is she? And who are we? We’re the animus, the sadistical urge, not for killing this woman but for the flesh we have turned her and all like her into, pure flesh where we play out our fantastic and virtual existence, cigarette burns, needles, whips and all, the embodiment of cultural, political, ideological power. We need Terri Schiavo, since she is our collective body without organs, pure physicality upon which we act our spirit. Her broken body is ours. Long live the new flesh.
Since the quarter is nearly a wrap, I feel like offering an ode to one of my favorite holidays, St. Patrick's Day.
I just learned that Patrick was never officially canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. That alone, in my mind, deserves mad props. How often does one come accross an unofficial, perhaps even rebel, saint? His lack of canonization is, in part, the result of the clash between the celtic and anglo christians of those bygone days. Things having to do with the date of Easter, and, (another thing I just found out from my pastor), monk hairdos. Anyway, fascinating stuff, and it is clear that St. Pat's is a christian holiday, at least in origins. This is the first reason I love it.
Second, this is probably the only holiday that is celebrated by drinking copious amounts of one of the world's finest beers. Guinness is good for you, its always a lovely day for a Guinness, and there is no better way to celebrate Jesus and the missionary endeavor than to quaff a pint.
The rarity of this holiday is striking if you consider it in light of our other festive traditions. St. Pats is celebrated the way a holiday ought to be celebrated. A brief list of the worst offenders demonstrates this adequately. Giving eggs and hanging up pictures of rabbits in a thinly-veiled syncretistic fertility rite? Coercing "treats" through the threat of violence? Pulling some poor groundhog out of his den in the middle of winter? Indulging in raw consumerism that will put you in debt for the next three months and leave you depressed? Not ways to celebrate, in my book. But listening to some fiddles (or U2), haunting the pubs, and toasting our Savior . . . now that's a holiday.
Enjoy.
So, Alaska was a whole lot of fun. It was great to make the accquaintance of a certain Ike Reeder and to hang out, although all to briefly, with Chip. On Saturday, we ate at this Mexican restaurant where apparantly half the Millette family has worked at one time or another. And the country is amazing. Although I was in the biggest city in the state (250-300K people), knowing that the vastness was all around me made me feel it, somehow.
As for the intellectual exchange, it was very invigorating. It was a good wave to catch to help me finish out the quarter. I did happen to accquire a stalker for a brief period during the weekend. It was strange. I'll tell you about it sometime.
This is brief but sincere, and I'll get back with everyone soon.
Tomorrow night I am off to the Pac-Rim Conference at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. I will be delivering a paper there on Friday, which is stressful. But I will be hanging out with Ike Reeder and, hopefully, Chauncy Millette over the weekend, which will be fun. Unfortunately, Capria can't come with me, so if any of you feel like calling her this weekend it will make her feel less lonely.
I could say more, but I have stuff to do. The weather in Seattle is amazing right now.